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October 4, 2004
Who Will Be The 'Innovation President'?
Posted by Renee Hopkins Callahan
Probably to help publicize its Oct. 11 Innovation Economy special issue (see IdeaFlow post below), the Business Week Oct. 4 issue features commentary on whether Bush or Kerry would be a better President at fostering innovation. Author Bruce Nussbaum says both candidates "love innovation," but puts Bush slightly ahead, despite his lack of support for stem-cell research funding.
The reason seems to be that Bush is more of a known quantity, believes in lowering taxes, and has shown some willingness to spend on such things as the National Insitute of Health. The deficit is bad for innovation, but as Nussbaum notes,
"Kerry doesn't have any realistic plans to cut the budget deficit, either. He would keep the deep Bush income-tax cuts and reductions on capital gains and dividends, except for taxpayers making $200,000 or more.
The problem is that it's precisely those people who make that kind of money who do most of the saving and investing in the country. And it's entrepreneurs who often wind up paying income taxes at the highest rates. That's simply a fact of financial life."
How you call this one depends a lot on what you think innovation is, and what you think nurtures it, nationally and globally. My take is that whoever will focus not on the jobs already lost to outsourcing, but on education, training and R&D, is probably the better choice, innovation-wise. Which candidate that is depends a lot on whether you believe Kerry's promises and whether you like what Bush has already done in this regard. It's very easy to promise these kinds of things and hard to deliver. Too bad there's not going to be a debate focused on innovation!
Comments (6)
| Category: Law & Policy
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Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is 
1. whatever on October 5, 2004 12:41 PM writes...
To think that every entrepreneur is thinking about marginal tax rates as a driver for innovation completely ignores empirical studies of innovation and entreprenuership.
Intrinsic motivation is a major driver for innovation - not tax cuts.
Bush's policies to restrict academics from abroad is going to be seen as the tipping point when innovation moved to friendlier shores.
Permalink to Comment2. Renee Hopkins Callahan on October 5, 2004 1:10 PM writes...
Thanks for the comment! Yes, I've seen those studies regarding intrinsic motivation for entrepreneurial types.
I also think you are absolutely correct about Bush's policies regarding restriction of visas, in this age of global innovation. The article doesn't point that out, I don't think. I may have to go back and look at it again.
Permalink to Comment3. Jeff De Cagna on October 6, 2004 9:12 AM writes...
I think it is ludicrous for Nussbaum to think that Bush's policies are more favorable to innovation than those of John Kerry. (It doesn't surprise me however because BW is pretty much a Republican publication anyway.) Over the course of his presidency, Bush has demonstrated that he is comfortable with compromising scientific research on both ideological and religious grounds, comfortable with driving our public schools toward a culture of testing instead of emphasizing actual learning, thinking and creativity and comfortable with creating a national climate of fear around terrorism that can only serve to inhibit innovation.
In the article, Nussbaum points to the No Child Left Behind Act as a positive for Bush. Unfortunately, it has been a disastrous failure, so much so that even Republican-controlled state legislatures in Utah and Virginia have rebelled against its provisions. The bigger issue is that Bush seems to believe that teaching kids to take tests is the best way to educate them. Well, as an educator myself, I'm sure that taking tests will help them get better at the rote memorization and regurgitation of context-free facts, but it won't help them learn how to think and learn how to learn, both critical capabilities for innovation. And, on training, while Bush talks about increasing funding for community colleges and re-training out of one side of his mouth, he is planning to cut that funding in his next budget should he be re-elected.
There is MUCH MORE I could say, but I don't want to be accused of ranting. When it comes to innovation, Bush has been and will continue to be an unmitigated disaster, just as he has been in every other phase of his presidency. Nussbaum must be on crack.
Permalink to Comment4. Renee Hopkins Callahan on October 6, 2004 9:31 AM writes...
Points well taken and rant successfully avoided! Does anyone know of any similar article to this one -- and article that discusses in detail the innovation-related policies of the two candidates -- that I could cite? I will look for one as well.
Permalink to Comment5. Katherine on October 7, 2004 9:16 AM writes...
I'm an entrepreneur in a technology-driven industry. Frankly, I couldn't care less about marginal tax rates. I'd be delighted to pay more in taxes if it meant my health insurance would cost less than my mortgage.
On education, FactCheck.org, which claims to be non-partisan, is skeptical of No Child Left Behind, both because it's badly underfunded and because of score manipulation incidents in Texas. http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=181
On science policy in general, the Union of Concerned Scientists has been very vocal about the Bush administration's willingness to manipulate science in the interest of ideology, for example by appointing science policymakers with questionable technical credentials by ideologically correct views. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1449 More money for the National Institutes of Health is a mixed blessing at best if ideologues are deciding how the money gets spent.
As far as I'm concerned, Bush's innovation policies are such a disaster that Kerry couldn't possibly be worse.
Permalink to Comment6. Renee Hopkins Callahan on October 7, 2004 9:43 AM writes...
Thanks much! There's a newer post on this topic that has more information on the policies of both candidates, summarizing a paper by Forrester Research that says both candidates are bad in this regard. Regarding your comment -- "Bush's innovation policies are such a disaster that Kerry couldn't possibly be worse" -- if you look at the future and try to see who might be better in terms of positioning the U.S. in a future where innovation is much more globally oriented, Kerry has some policies that don't look so good either. Whether his policies would be worse than Bush's, is what I'm trying to figure out. One difference is that Bush is actually president and has shown what he will do, while Kerry's policies are just intentions at this point. Hard to know what he would actually do if elected. How much of what Kerry says now is being said just to get elected? A lot of people seem to dislike Bush's science and innovation policies enough to dump him for an unknown.
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